Microsoft has officially acknowledged that the KB5073455 cumulative update, rolled out in January 2026, has triggered power management malfunctions on certain Windows 11 23H2 Enterprise and IoT Edition systems. Affected devices are unable to shut down or enter hibernation mode correctly; instead, they automatically restart when users attempt these operations. The root cause of the problem lies in the System Guard Secure Launch feature—a security mechanism intended to protect against firmware-based attacks. However, following the update, this feature inadvertently disrupts power management commands.

As of now, Microsoft has not issued an official fix for this issue but has offered a temporary workaround. Users can force an immediate shutdown by running the command 'shutdown /s /t 0' in Command Prompt. To mitigate potential data loss or unexpected restarts, Microsoft strongly advises users to manually save all open files before stepping away from their computers and to rely on the aforementioned command for shutdown purposes.